Oscars 2011: How the Australians fared

Big name Australian actors have gone home without a gold statuette from the 83rd Academy Awards, but our respected technicians have triumphed, winning Oscars for direction, editing, make-up and best animated short film.

Geoffrey Rush and Nicole Kidman, among the most famous Australians worldwide, did not get the nod from the Hollywood movie intelligentsia, but award-winning author and illustrator Shaun Tan upset Pixar's Day and Night to win for best animated short film with The Lost Thing, and Kirk Baxter was co-winner for his editing work on criticially acclaimed drama The Social Network.

Andrew Ruhemann (L) and Shaun Tan pose with their Oscars for Best Animated Short Film for 'The Lost Thing'. Photo: Reuters

The winners

BEST DIRECTOR: Dual Australian and British citizen Tom Hooper, 38, received the most prestigious gong, taking the directing Academy Award for The King's Speech.

The Social Network's David Fincher was the favourite in the category.

Hooper was persuaded by his Adelaide-born mother, Meredith, to direct the film which stars Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth.

"I know there has been a lot of thanking of mums, but this is different," Hooper said on stage at the Kodak Theatre.

"... the moral of the story is, listen to your mother."

BEST PICTURE: Emile Shermanwas a producer of The King's Speech, which was unsurprisingly named top film of the year. And he earned his gong, with the low-budget feature ($14 million) a masterpiece of financing, invloving several investors.

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BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM: Australian author and illustrator Shaun Tan and British producer Andrew Ruehmann won the Academy Award with The Lost Thing, despite being 8-1 outsiders with bookmakers.

Tan follows in the footsteps of Melburnian Adam Elliott who won in the same category for Harvey Krumpet in 2004. He called the win "surreal". It was the directorial debut for both men.

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BEST EDITING: Australia's Kirk Baxter has won an Oscar for his editing work with American colleague Angus Wall on the Facebook film, The Social Network. The 38-year-old former Sydneysider was nominated with Wall two years ago for their editing of the Cate Blanchett film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, but they missed out on the Oscar.

BEST MAKE-UP: Dave Elsey, a Brit who moved to Australia 12 years ago to work on the TV sci-fi series Farscape and now declares himself an Aussie, won with colleague Rick Baker in the make-up category for their lauded work on the critically-slammed horror film, The Wolfman.

Those who missed out:

BEST ACTRESS: Nicole Kidman missed out on the best actress Oscar, with Natalie Portman following the script and claiming the award for her role in Black Swan.

Kidman was considered a 40/1 outsider for the Oscar, while Portman was the short-priced favourite.

Kidman was nominated for Rabbit Hole.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Former winner Geoffrey Rush failed to get the nod for his work on The King's Speech. Christian Bale won out for The Fighter.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:Animal Kingdom'sJacki Weaver repeatedly exclaimed how excited she was to be at the event, but she didn't get the bonus of a statuette to take home, losing out to Melissa Leo from The Fighter.

VISUAL EFFECTS: Australia had two nominees, Ben Snow for Iron Man 2, and Joe Farrell for Hereafter, in the visual effects Oscar category, but failed to score a gold statuette.

The visual effects Oscar went to the team from the mind-bending sci-fi thriller Inception.

Snow, originally from a goat farm outside Canberra, has become a regular bridesmaid at the Oscars, with this year making the fourth time he has attended the ceremony as a nominee but went home empty-handed.

It was former Sydneysider Farrell's first nomination.

Australia's 10 Oscar nominees in 2011 fell just short of the record 13 Aussies invited to the 2002 Academy Awards when Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge, starring Kidman, and Russell Crowe's A Beautiful Mind were among the dominant films.